Sunday

Sabbath's appetizer- How to pray long and smoothly

The smooth I put in the title is funny to me, and I'll tell you why. Have you ever been in a situation whereby you are praying and your mind kept thinking of other stuffs. And you know you really need that prayer but you just can't seem to tame your mind from wandering off.

How about the feeling that you have prayed for a long time, only to check your watch and realize it's just five minutes! Ha the devil is a liar...LOL
I've experience all those, and I still do sometimes but I'm getting better everyday. You see, I could be praying and my mind is thinking about a past event, what I wanted to do after praying, replaying a movie for me or even thinking about food!

Excuse me, it's not because I'm carnal *side eyes*...LOL, thank God for teachers of the word who has helped us to realize that it's our mind trying to play pranks on us. So how do you pray long and smooth?

I know you are a walking spirit...LOL, but you are also a walking flesh, so you need to physically help yourself at times. So here are the things I've learnt and I've put to use.

"Pray without ceasing- 1 Thessalonians 5:17"

1. Walk away from distraction.
Yes, anything or anyone can distract you, kindly physically walk away. It could be your siblings, kids or spouse or your mobile phone. Kindly move to a solitary place or go outside and pray. A married woman, once told me, she couldn't pray the way she wanted because she doesn't want her husband hearing her prayers. She wanted the answers to the prayer be a surprise to him.

I also do this, I don't like people hearing my personal prayers. So I told her to move out of the room anytime she wants to pray and stop using her husband as an excuse.

2. Carry a note and a pen.
It's good to have a note and pen ready incase a word of inspiration drops into your spirit. But it also go to use it to write down those thought that is distracting you. Writing it will help you to zoom back into your prayers. It works for me anyway.

3. Speak out audibly for you to hear yourself.
This is also a good tactics when your mind is playing pranks, as you hear yourself, it become registered in your mind and you become more serious.

4. Snooze your alarm.
If you want to pray long, lets say for 30mins, 1 hr and so on. You can snooze your alarm to 15mins intervals. You won't stop until you hear the alarm, then kick it off again. This method will stop you from checking the time every minutes! Praying long is sweet especially if you speak in tongue and use the word of God in your prayers.